Badge of Courage
by writergal24
Summary: It's Dominique and Molly's seventh year, and Hogwarts is invaded. Will Dominique have the courage to stand up to the invaders, help their cousins, and find away to get out? Third place in alohamora080's the "True Colors" Competition. Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

**9/5: I have FINALLY gotten around to editing this story. I was in a competition and the deadline was before I was ready, so I posted it quickly. But I have just edited all of the chapters and reposted them.**

**Disclaimer: Wanna hear a joke? I own Harry Potter. Haha wasn't that funny? No, but really, I don't own Harry Potter.**

**This is a submission to alohamora080's "True Colors" Competition. My character is Dominique Weasley, and my prompt is the color red, which (in this story) symbolizes courage.**

"Did you hear that?" Molly asked, her red head perking up. My cousin stretched her neck towards the staircase that led out of our dormitory, as though every inch allowed her to hear better.

"Yes," I told her.

We were alone in our dormitory, a situation which tended to be problematic, because we somehow managed fight whenever we were alone. Actually, we somehow managed to fight always. But we sat on our own beds, on opposite sides of the room, not talking prior to that moment. We were far enough away that we had to raise our voices to communicate.

"The shouting?" Molly prodded.

"Yes," I said, "It's been going on for a few minutes." My bed was closer to the staircase, so I could hear what was going on downstairs better than she could. Molly's perfectly neat bed was in the far corner of the room.

"Well, why didn't you tell me, Dominique? We should go figure out what's going on!"

I waved my quill around. "I'm sure it's just Fred and James being idiots and pulling some stupid prank. Don't worry about it." Expecting this to end the conversation, I returned to my Charms homework. We were preparing for our N.E. , so the teachers had been brutal in homework assignments. My other roommates didn't seem to care – who knew where they even were? – but Molly and I had spent quite a bit of time in our dorms or the library trying to get work done.

But just as I started answering a question, Molly interrupted me again. "I don't know… maybe I should go down. I am Head Girl, after all."

I gritted my teeth softly. I swear to Dumbledore, Molly threw that into every single conversation that we have. "Fine. Go," I snapped at her. "But there's nothing to see."

Molly made a face at me, one which only she and Uncle Percy could make, but returned to her work. In this game that we were playing, this game which nobody ever seemed to really win, neither of us wanted to be wrong, neither of us wanted to look weak, and, of course, neither of us could let our grades slip.

Not even a minute had passed before I heard footsteps pounding quickly up the stairs. "Molly! Dom!" a voice shrieked. Both of us jumped to our feet as little Lily ran in the room, her round face almost as red as her hair. "Come quickly!"

The look of complete desperation and fear on Lily's face was enough to prevent Molly from sending me the, "I told you so," face that she would have at any other time.

The three of us ran down the staircase as fast as we possibly could, practically tripping over our feet. At the thundering of our feet, some of the younger girls stuck their heads out to see what was going on.

From the moment the Gryffindor Common Room comes into sight, I knew that this was no foolish prank pulled by my cousins. This was no funny joke or victory celebration.

This was chaos.

There were Gryffindors everywhere, and about half of them were moving around, quickly, nervously. And the source of all of this tension: standing in front of the back of the Fat Lady's portrait were four men.

The men were tall. They wore black uniforms, almost like a soldier in a Muggle army. But they had masks on that covered their faces.

The message got across clear enough though. Nobody was allowed in or out.

We were stuck inside the Gryffindor Common Room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

We found our fellow seventh years fairly quickly. As the eldest students, we dominated the school, the common room, and the most comfortable chairs. We had claimed the chairs by the fireplace at the beginning of the year, and all of our friends were standing near them, alert. They were staring at me and Molly as though we were supposed to say something significant.

"What's going on?" Molly asked immediately.

"We don't know," Jason Wright responded, a grim look on his face. "They got in behind a pair of first years. They haven't said anything yet."

"I tried to go talk to them and they didn't respond to me," Isolde Slughorn said. Isolde's blonde hair was uncharacteristically ruffled, like she was so stressed out that she had forgotten to smooth it out in the last few minutes. Trent Wood's arms were wrapped around her so tightly that it looked like he must have been cutting off circulation to the lower half of her body. The pair had been dating for almost a year at that point, and they were inseparable.

Molly cleared her throat. "Well, I will go try again. I am Head Girl, after all. They have to listen to me in this Common Room."

Molly strode over to the guards as though she really did own the room.

"I can't watch this," Gretchen Creevey cried, ducking behind her hands.

Ethan Thomas, one of my best friends (who may or may not have been my boyfriend), came over and took my hand. We looked at each other for a long moment. "I was in the library," he whispered into my ear. "They came in, divided us up by houses, and escorted us back to our common rooms."

"What about the teachers?"

"They took Madam Pince," he said.

I looked at him in horror for a long moment, and then we both turned to watch Molly.

Deco Thorton poked me in the back. "Hey, lovebirds, either of you got a wand so you can save your cousin when she gets in trouble?"

I stared at him for a long moment and then slapped my forehead. "No, I was in such a rush to get down here that I didn't think of it. Any of you guys?" I asked.

I looked around at all of my friends. Most of the other years had little groups and cliques that defy sortings, but in our year, all of the Gryffindors were friends together. It's not that we had prejudices against any of the other houses – we were friendly with almost all of them. It's just that we formed such a tight group in first year that it's been really hard to let anyone else in. So, other than in classes, we tended to stick to ourselves.

But all of them now shook their heads. Nobody had their wand.

Bloody perfect.

And now Molly had reached the guards.

"Excuse me, my name is Molly Weasley, I am Head Girl." She tapped the badge that was pinned to her chest. "I would like to know what you are doing here."

They didn't respond.

Well, there you go. We were screwed.

But Molly didn't seem to have the same attitude.

She continued to blabber on to the guards about her responsibility and the honor and values of Hogwarts and she wouldn't shut up and the guards still didn't say anything.

And then, while Molly was jabbering away, the Fat Lady's portrait hole swung open, and a tall man walked in. This man was dressed just as simply as the others were, but there was something about his air, something about the way he walked like he was an exclamation point, something about the way the others looked at him. He was clearly in charge, at least of this group.

Molly backed away, clearly intimidated by the man's sheer size.

The man's eyes swept over the entire common room. Then he spoke, and his voice filled the whole room, for we had all fallen quiet.

"Go retrieve your wands if you do not have them on your body. Do not try to hide in the dormitories. We will be conducting thorough inspections of them to ensure that nobody is trying to hide, and anyone found hiding in the dormitories will be killed immediately. So make sure all of your friends upstairs come downstairs." The man paused for a moment. "When you have your wands, line up. Boys over here… and girls over there." He pointed to the opposite sides of the rooms.

We all stood there, in shock. We were frozen, like a museum of statues. Not even our chests moved as we breathed, because we were hardly breathing.

"Well, then, GO!" the man screamed.

The room burst back to life. The staircase up to the girls' dorms was instantly full of people scrambling to go get their wands, and we ended up standing on the stairs, moving only a step every few seconds, waiting for the people in front of us to move.

When we reached the dormitory, we all grabbed our wands, and then we stood in the middle of the room and stared at each other for a long moment. It was only the five of us: me, Isolde, Pippa, Gretchen, and Molly. We were the undividable, the strong.

"We're going to be okay," Pippa said, breaking the silence.

"Of course we are," Isolde told her, with a huge smile, because it seemed that Pippa was more fishing for reassurance, rather than reassuring us.

We grabbed hands and, together, walked down the staircase.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Ethan, Trent, Elex, Deco, and Jason were already lined up when we got back downstairs. They stood against the wall, not far from a few of my cousins – Fred and James, who looked like they were up to something, even in the middle of this chaos. Maybe that look of guilt and adrenaline had just been permanently frozen on their faces.

The girls and I lined up on the opposite wall. We faced the boys, but we were far enough apart that we couldn't talk.

Slowly, but surely, the rest of the house came back down into the Common Room and took their spots in line. The guards and their leader then must have the decided that they were ready.

The leader stepped up between the boys and the girls. "Perfect. Now, are you all sure that there is nobody left in the dormitories?"

I skimmed the lines, making sure all of my cousins were there. Rose and Albus were both towards the end of the lines, and Scorpius was with Albus. Lucy and Lily were as close as if they had been tied in a little knot, all other friendships forgotten in their moment of desperation. And James and Fred were on the other side, as were Louis and Hugo. Molly, of course, stood right next to me. Roxanne was in Hufflepuff, and I hoped that she was okay, whatever was going on there.

And that was everybody. Everybody was safe, for now.

When there were no responses of "yes" the leader took another deliberate step. "Great. Now, wands…"

The guards came around and began to collect our wands. A bunch of people attempted to fight for their wands in a game of tug-of-war, but the game always ended when the guards hexed them. Everybody felt extremely uneasy by the end of that. Without our wands, were we even wizards anymore? Without our wands, we had no power. Without our wands, who were we?

But that wasn't even the worst part. Because after the wands had been collected, the leader called out, "Boys! Follow me." And then he began to walk towards the exit.

The boys didn't listen that time. The room once again became a chaotic scene of shoving, hugging, crying, screaming, and every other action you can imagine. Ethan ran forward and pulled me into a hug and soon some of our other friends joined in the hug, so we were huddling in a large circle, waiting for them to come extract the boys. Isolde and Trent were being forcefully removed from each other, their lips wrenched from the others, the curves of their bodies unattached.

My friends and I stood in a huddle.

And Albus and Scorpius and Rose were all talking rapidly, getting in last minute thoughts, saying whatever it was that they wanted the other to know. From the look on Rose's face, she was contemplating the situation, trying to figure out where the boys were going, trying to figure out what we were even doing.

And we stood in a huddle.

I kissed Ethan's cheek. "It'll be okay," I told him, repeating Pippa's words. I could only hope that I sounded more confided than she had.

Ethan nodded grimly at me.

And there were shrieks of despair and cries of grief and sobs of fear.

And we stood in a huddle.

And then I risked a look up, having felt a weight being lifted off of me, and found that the boys had left our embrace. They were being dragged away by the guards, who seemed to have multiplied since the last time I'd looked up.

Each guard had a Gryffindor boy in their embrace and they were dragging them out of the room, while the boys screamed for the girls and the girls screamed for the boys.

Flashes of goodbyes passed before my eyes.

Then the boys were gone, and what remained was a room full of crying girls, trying to comfort each other, and a few guards, standing next to the doorway, preventing us from escaping with the boys.

Ethan was gone. Trent and Jason and Elex and Deco were gone. Louis was gone.

I'd let my little brother leave without saying goodbye.

Suddenly, I was the one marching up to the guards, but rather than using Molly's "I'll talk them to death" method, I started punching one of them in my rage, barely even conscious of what I was doing.

That only lasted until one of the others hexed me. But I bet I managed to bruise that first guy.

Pippa came over and helped me off of the ground. "Violence isn't going to fix this, Dom," she told me as she pulled me away from the men and towards the fireplace.

"Then what is?" I snapped.

Her lip pouted out. "I don't know," she responded, her voice cracking. "But those men aren't going to respond to some teenage girl hitting them. That's not going to make them come back."

Maybe she was right. But now wasn't the time to admit it.

Pippa looked at me for a long moment and then said forcefully, "Now, Isa is a complete wreck right now, so if you could just… sit there calmly for a moment while I go try and get her to stop sobbing, it would be appreciated."

"Pippa," I said, putting my hand out to stop her. But I changed my mind. "Thank you."

She gripped my hand and then disappeared into the crowd.

I sat there for a few minutes, as though I was waiting for something. I think I was really just trying to understand though – trying to understand that the boys were gone and we didn't know if they were coming back and how could they not come back? Those were my cousins, my brother, my friends. How could just they just walk away and not come back?

I don't know how much time passed before the leader returned, with more guards in tow, once again demanding that we form a line, though we were only girls now.

I joined my friends and gripped Isolde's hand with my left and Gretchen's with my right. We stood on line and faced the men, pretending that we were more confident about the situation then we actually were.

The leader paced in front of us, looking over us like we were pieces of meat at a deli, from the shortest first year to the tallest seventh year.

"You there. Red," he finally said.

All of the Weasleys looked at him expectantly.

"No, you."

He was pointing straight at me.

I dropped my friends' hands and made a small gulping sound.

_Why me?_

It was the curse of red hair, obviously. It makes you stand out in a crowd. Why did Louis and Victoire get lucky enough to have blonde hair? Why did I have to be the one with hair as red as dad's?

But even any of my cousins…

No.

I didn't want my cousins to have to take this one.

I stepped forward.

"Name."

"Excuse me?" I asked, staring at the man.

He stepped right up to me so that his nose was but inches from my nose. I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding in my chest. His deep brown eyes were narrowing on my face, like I was a specimen that disgusted him.

"What is your name?" he repeated.

"Dom."

"Your full name," he growled.

"D-Dominique Weasley."

A smirk rose on his lips and he stepped back from me. "Dominique Weasley. A Weasley, eh? How many other Weasleys do we have in the room?"

My cousins slowly raised their hands and he looked at them.

"Interesting," he drawled. "Now… Dominique Weasley. Please explain to me _why_ it is that you were sorted into Gryffindor."

I was silent.

"Was it because you are brave? Tell me about how brave you are, Dominique Weasley. Are you brave enough to withstand this?"

He raised his wand at me and before I even had time to shield myself, he was screaming, "Crucio!" and the pain took over.

It was like nothing else in the world existed. It was just me and this pain, this pain that was crushing me. I wanted to die. I wanted the pain to just end.

And then, slowly, the pain subsided.

Feelings slowly came back to me and I found that I was laying on the floor in the Gryffindor common room. I wasn't even on a rug – I was lying on the cold stone floors. My whole body ached, but I didn't seem to have any real injuries.

"Isolde Slughorn," I heard a voice say and I gathered my energy to look up.

There, standing in front of me, was Isolde, her body between mine and a man –the man. The man who had caused all of that pain. He was lying across the couch, his body positioned as though he had been thrown there.

There was Isolde, her blonde hair sticking up in every direction, with a wild look in her eyes as she glanced back at me to make sure I was okay.

Oh… oh, no. _Isolde_ had pushed him there.

"So, Isolde Slughorn," the man said, "Do _you_ consider yourself brave?"

"I would risk my life in order to save the life of someone I loved. If you consider that brave, then yes, I suppose so," she said formally.

The man nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting. You may return to the line now."

"No."

"No?"

"I want you to bring the boys back. Now." When the man didn't respond, her anger bubbled up. "Go get them, right now."

Pippa stepped out to console her, but Isolde pushed her away.

"NOW!" Isolde yelled.

When he still did nothing, she pounced. Her whole body leaned back towards me, and then leaped through the air, landing on the man.

Before her hand could connect with his face, the guards had surrounded them, shooting spells at her that didn't register in my mind.

In my mind, everything seemed to have gone into slow motion.

Isolde froze and slowly rolled off of the couch.

Pippa screamed.

The girls on line gasped in horror.

Molly grabbed Pippa as she attempted to run out and grab Isolde.

The guards took Isolde.

And then Isolde was gone.

And so was the man, with a promise that he would be back later.

A promise – a threat.

Gretchen came over and tried to help me get to my feet, but when it proved that I was in no state to walk up the staircase by myself, she enlisted Rose's help in half-carrying me.

Rose helped me into bed, the opposite of the way it should have been. She was the younger cousin – I should have been helping her.

Gretchen escaped down the stairs after blabbing some story of going to help Pippa.

"Are you okay, Rosie? You seem awfully quiet."

Rose sighed as she pulled my shoes off. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm as fine as any of us are."

"I'm sure Al and Scorpius are fine. They're smart."

Rose looked at me for a long moment. "Yeah, they are. Look, I have to go… Uh, I promised Lily I would tell her a story before she goes to bed. You know, like…" Rose choked on the end of the sentence.

"Like Grandma Molly did."

"Does," Rose corrected "Like she still does."

I nodded. "Of course."

Rose walked quickly to the staircase, over clothes and papers and books that scattered the floor and had seemed important yesterday, but suddenly didn't matter anymore. When she got to the doorway, she paused. "Do you think Uncle Harry knows what's going on?"

Considering that Uncle Harry was the Head of the Aurors, I sincerely hoped so. "Of course," I lied.

Rose gave me a small smile. "Get some rest, Dom. And feel better."

"I'll be fine," I reassured her, and her small red head disappeared around the corner.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Molly!" Lucy's voice shrieked and the whole dormitory sat up faster than you could say "Moldy Voldy."

"What's going on, Lucy?" Molly asked. She was already out of bed, standing in the open in her small lace nightdress that she insisted on wearing, even though the rest of us all wore shorts and t-shirts to bed.

Lily and Lucy stood in the threshold of the room.

"Look what we found!" Lily exclaimed. She brandished a piece of paper.

"The Marauder's Map!" Molly and I said at the same time.

"Where was it?" Molly asked.

Lily smiled. "In my trunk. I stole it from Albus the other night," she told us. She looked pretty proud of herself.

"What's the Marauder's Map?" Gretchen asked, rubbing her eyes.

"It's a map that my uncle's dad made," I explained. "It shows where everyone in the castle is. But… we don't have a wand. It won't work."

"That's where it gets even better!" Lucy said.

Lily's smile widened. "I forgot to say 'Mischief Managed' because I fell asleep while I was looking at it. So it's still open!"

I grabbed the map out of her hands, and sure enough, the map was alive, displaying the names of the Marauders who had created it. And inside, there it was, the map of the whole school. And there we were, in Gryffindor Tower…

"The boys aren't on it," I said softly.

Everyone was silent and nobody would look at me.

"What about Isa?" Pippa asked softly from her bed. She still hadn't gotten up, and her face was blotchy from crying.

I scanned the map as quickly as possible, hoping to have good news to tell her. "Isolde is still on the map! She's in… the trophy room."

Pippa made a noise like a dying cat.

Molly walked over and hugged Pippa. "At least she's okay."

"I know," Pippa whispered.

"What about the other houses?" Gretchen asked.

"All of the other girls are in their dorms, too," I said.

A sharp gasp came from Pippa's bed and we looked over to see Molly standing there with an elated look on her face. "Lily, do you have the cloak?"

Lily frowned. "No. James had it." She looked upset when she saw that we are upset. "But I can go get it!"

"No, you can't," I told her.

"Yes, I can! I'll take the map with me. I'll make sure no guards are looking at then I'll go up to the boy's dorms. They aren't guarding it anyway. And then I'll go to James' room and get the Cloak."

Molly and I exchanged a long look.

"Alright, Lily," I conceded.

Lily's face lit up again.

"But, wait. You have to promise me that you will watch the map the _entire _time. Even when you are up in the dorm. If you see any sign of trouble, get under the cloak immediately, okay?"

Lily nodded obediently.

"Do you need a distraction?" Pippa asked from her bed.

I smiled sadly. "That would be wonderful."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Molly, the other girls, and I stayed up in the dorm so as not to draw suspicion by all walking down the stairs at the same time. We just let Pippa and Lily go down and sat there and waited. Pippa was going to talk to the guards about Isolde while Lily ran up into the boy's dormitories.

Molly decided to tap her bedpost while we were waiting. The tapping practically drove me insane. I was about to yell at her when we heard it

A bloodcurdling scream. From the common room.

My feet pounded down the staircase before I was even conscious of what I was doing. Pippa was standing at the bottom of the staircase, her face white like she'd just seen a ghost.

"Dom… the boy's dorm… smoke…" she gasped out.

I looked over at the boy's dorm and the scariest scene that I had ever seen in my life was before me. Coming out of staircase to the boys' dormitories were huge black clouds that crept into the common room like long fingers stretching out.

I heard screaming, but nothing came out of my mouth until I was standing beside the guard who watching the fire.

"Why aren't you putting it out?" I demanded.

He responded to me, which was slightly shocking. "Because I started it. We are erasing all memories of the boys."

"You idiot! My cousin is up there!"

Shock flew over the man's face. "What do you mean?"

"She went to go get something from her brother's trunk!" I exclaimed.

"Shit."

I stared at the man for about two more seconds, while he considered what to do, and then I ran up the burning staircase.

The fire had almost consumed the entire room already, but there were passageways for me to dart down. I drew my shirt up over my mouth to prevent myself from inhaling too much smoke, but I was already coughing as I reached the 1st years' dormitories. But I pressed on, cursing James for being so old.

I heard shouting behind me, but I ignored it as I walked up, and up, and up.

Finally, panting and gasping for breath like I'd never done in my life, I reached James' dormitory and I walked in.

It was full of flames.

Lily was nowhere to be seen.

The guard who I'd talked to ran in behind me as I was assessing the situation, a wand in hand. He started casting a spell that put the water out, and I willed him to go faster as I started searching the burnt areas that he'd revealed.

As I drew closer to James' bed, a glimmer caught my eye.

I paused and looked at the spot on the ground where I'd seen it come from. All I could see was the rug, which had been burnt to a crisp. But I stepped closer and reached my hand out and my hand hit something about a foot off of the ground.

_The Invisibility Cloak_.

I choked on the smoke for a moment, and then I slowly, hesitantly, lifted the cloak up.

But it was too late.

It was too late.

It was too late.

She was gone.

The guard came over and stood behind me. "Oh, shit," he said, before coughing.

And the Invisibility Cloak was still in my hand. And it still worked, I knew, because I realized now that I couldn't see my hand.

The Peverell story was wrong. It was wrong, wrong, wrong. The Cloak didn't hide you from death.

She was gone.

The Cloak did nothing but hide her from human sight.

She was gone.

The Cloak did nothing against Death.

I sob escaped my throat, which was surprising because it was so sore from yelling – _that's what that noise was _– and the smoke that pressed up against my lungs like a fog sticking to the ground.

And the Invisibility Cloak, the ineffectual Invisibility Cloak, was still in my hands, still hiding my hand, still there even though Lily was gone.

I spread it out between my hands and pulled as hard as I could. I used every muscle that I'd ever earned playing Quidditch trying to rip that freaking thing apart, but no matter how hard I pulled, it wouldn't rip. It fluttered out of my hands as I groaned in frustration, and I began stomping on it, squishing it into the ashes on the floor, but it was still there, _it was still fucking there_.

Suddenly the ground was pressed up against my cheek and I realized that I had fallen over on top of the cloak, and, yes, I did feel a little bit lightheaded, now that you mentioned it. And then there were hands on top of me, lifting me off of the ground, and lifting up the stupid Invisibility Cloak, too.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

We didn't do much for the next few days. Especially not the Weasleys. We just sat around and cried and avoided everybody's stares and all thought to ourselves: "It was all my fault."

But it really was mine.

* * *

Four days after they first arrived, the leader came back and announced that we would be allowed to leave Gryffindor Tower for the first time.

He looked really tired. There were bags under his eyes. I still didn't know what his name was.

"You'll be allowed to go down to the Great Hall for breakfast and dinner. Lunch will be brought to the Common Room. You'll also attend a few classes. We will tell you more about that tomorrow. Please remember, though, that every entrance and exit to the castle is heavily guarded and any conduct that defies my wishes will not go unpunished."

Isolde was our example for that. We still didn't know what happened to her, either, other than that she had been in the trophy room.

The Marauder's Map burned in the fire.

Gretchen had the Invisibility Cloak hidden in the pocket of a coat that she didn't wear.

"We expect you to be down here at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock sharp," the man said sternly, and then he left the Tower.

"At least we'll get to go to classes," Pippa said softly.

Rose frowned from her seat next to us. "I don't think these will be regular classes," she said vaguely before getting up and going upstairs.

* * *

"Um, Dominique?" a little girl said, poking her head through the doorway.

"Yes?" I asked, preparing myself for the bad news.

"Your cousin won't wake up. She says she, uh, doesn't want to go to class," the girl said, looking slightly nervous.

I sighed. "Which one?"

"Lucy," she replied, and then she disappeared.

I turned to Molly. "You got this one."

"What? No."

"Yeah, she's your sister."

"But you're dressed."

"But you're Head Girl."

"But you're ready to go."

"But you're older."

"But she likes you better."

Everyone in the room froze, including Molly, like she'd just realized what came out of her mouth.

She looked around at us, frowning. "Well, she does," she said, pulling a skirt out of her trunk.

"That's not true," I protested.

"Of course it is." Molly straightened the skirt out, then decided she didn't like it and put it back. "You're better at dealing with people."

"Molly…"

"Just go!" Molly shrieked at me.

Gretchen gave me a little shrug. So I decided I would go, even though this was clearly Molly's responsibility. And wasn't she always telling me that she was the more responsible one? Wasn't she always telling me to step back and let her do it?

Not that I ever listened to her…

I trudged down the stairs to the second years' dormitory. Sure enough, there was a red head buried underneath a pile of blankets. I could see Lucy's red hair poking out.

She kind of looked like Lily.

_No_. I wasn't going to think about Lily right now. I was going to get Lucy out of bed. That was the most important thing.

"What's up, Luce?" I asked, sitting down on the bed beside her.

"I'm not going to class," she grumbled.

I frowned. "Why not?"

"Because."

"Why?"

"Because Louis and Lily are gone."

My throat caught. "I'm sure Louis is okay, Lucy."

"But how do you know that? You don't. He could be just as dead as Lily is," Lucy said, wryly, peeking out from between the blankets.

"Stop talking like that!" I snapped at her. "Don't say that about either of them, okay?"

"Why not? Lily's dead, and it's clearly your fault."

My heart stopped.

Lucy smirked. "You know it is. And I thought you were supposed to be one of the responsible people, the one who had it all put together? I guess you're just as bad as Molly."

I took deep breaths. My hand was already reaching out to smack her.

"I'm going to leave now," I told her. "But you better get your bloody butt out of bed and go to class. Otherwise, those guards that took Louis away? They're going to take you away, too. Maybe _they'll_ be able to talk some sense into you."

Lucy's frown deepened as I stomped out of the room and slammed the door shut.

I didn't even make it down the staircase before I lost it. My family was falling apart right before my eyes. I could do nothing about it, I didn't know how. And everything was my fault. Lucy was right. It was my fault that Lily was dead.

If anyone deserved to die, it was me.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Things didn't get better when we went down to breakfast. Sure, Lucy came with us, glaring at me the whole time.

But then Roxanne, the only Weasley cousin who wasn't in Gryffindor, came up to us, hugged us all, and asked where Lily was.

I left and moved down the table to sit by myself. My cousins could handle this one.

Even the Great Hall didn't look right. The candles suspended in midair weren't burning, so the guards had set up large candles on the tables. The sky was stormy, even though I'd caught a glimpse of the weather before and it was nice out. The number of chairs at the teacher's table had doubled.

I could hear Roxanne's sobs from down the table, but I ignored them, as though that would make it better. I just sat and I ate my breakfast.

* * *

Our first class was History of Magic.

But Rose had been right when she said that classes wouldn't be the same.

For one, Binns was gone. To be honest, I'm not sure how they accomplished that. He'd probably been going to class for several centuries. How they convinced him not to go anymore is a complete mystery.

It was a man dressed as simply as the guards that stood in front of us at the beginning of class. He also had a mask on so we couldn't see his face.

"Can anybody tell me about Harry Potter?" he said softly, in a voice like he was about to tell a joke, only none of us got it.

So Molly raised her hand. "Harry Potter, also known as the Boy who Lived, was targeted by Voldemort because Voldemort heard a prophecy and guessed that it was about Harry. When Voldemort went to kill Harry, he successfully killed his parents, but Harry survived, and Voldemort was temporarily destroyed. Then, when he was seventeen, Harry hunted down all of Voldemort's horcruxes and killed him at the Battle of Hogwarts, saving the Wizarding World and ending one of the worst wars that our world has ever seen."

The man stared at Molly for a long moment. "Lies," he stated simply.

Molly balked. "What?"

"The story you just told me is made entirely of lies," the man said. "Harry Potter did not save the Wizarding World. He destroyed its only chance of salvation. And he did not hunt down Voldemort's horcruxes. They were handed to him like free balloons. Harry Potter was a no-talent, useless mess of a wizard."

"Harry Potter is still alive," I said, shocked at the words escaping from my mouth. "So stop referring to my uncle as though he is dead."

"Not for long," the man chuckled.

I glared at him. "The story that _you _told us was lies. And if you'll recall the story of my uncle, you will notice that even the enemy urged him not to tell lies."

"Poor girl. You have been deluded-"

"I have NOT been deluded!" I exclaimed, jumping to my feet "Do you think the scar on my aunt's arm that says Mudblood is a coincidence? Do you think that my uncle Fred is dead because he was in a car accident? Do you think my dad was attacked by a werewolf because he was playing with one on the playground? Do you think Harry is the Head of Aurors because people felt bad for him? There was a _war_. And Voldemort was at fault."

He stared at me for a long moment. "Detention," he spat out finally.

"Excuse me?"

"I said detention." He paused. "What is your name?"

"What's yours?" The fact that none of the guards would reveal their names was starting to piss me off.

The man smiled at me. "Fine. Then I shall be forced to put every one of the Weasley cousins in detention. I hear there are _quite_ a lot of you, too."

"Dominique," I whispered, resigned, sitting back down on my seat.

The man smirked and moved on.

"Hold your temper, Dom," Pippa chastised.

And I did. By not listening to the rest of his "lesson."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"So what's my punishment?" I asked as one of the guards stalked down the hallway in front of me.

"You'll be bringing dinner to one of our prisoners," the guard replied, glancing back at me.

It was just after we'd eaten dinner in the Great Hall. Dinner was usually a lavish occasion, even on a regular school day, but that day, we'd all sat silently. Nobody wanted to talk because it just didn't seem right without the boys and the teachers…

And Lily.

"Prisoners?" I questioned.

But what I was really thinking was that bringing someone food didn't really count as a punishment.

He didn't reply. We walked down to the kitchen and he retrieved a tray from the elves, which he then handed to me without so much as acknowledging the elves. I merely gave them a friendly smile, worried that if I did anything else, it would only land me in more trouble.

Then he led me up to the third floor.

My heart dropped when we stopped in front of the trophy room.

"Is it…" I tried to ask, but my voice got cut off by my own gasp when he swung open the door.

The trophies were all gone. Instead, they'd been replaced by an extensive collection of weapons, similar to the ones that it had been rumored that Filch, the caretaker, kept in his office. I wouldn't know as I'd never been there, but James and Fred kept trying to convince me that it was true.

Standing against a wall was another guard.

And lying on the floor was a small ball of clothes.

Wait. No. That was Isolde.

Her blonde hair was the color of the floor, dirty and gray. Her clothes were torn and just barely hanging onto her body. Her face was pale, her skin was pale, there were blood stains on her clothes.

I almost dropped the food in my attempt to get to her.

"Isolde," I said. "Isolde, are you okay?"

She looked up at me with weak eyes. Then she glanced at the guard in the corner of the room. "Of course I'm okay, Dom. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

She was also chained to the wall.

There were chains.

Around her body.

And they were connected to the wall.

"I have food for you," I told her.

Isolde's eyes skimmed the food greedily and she reached out and shoved some in her mouth. "You've been behaving, right?"

Isolde was one of the few who realized how far my temper went.

"Of course I have," I lied.

"Good. You know…" she paused and ate another bite. "The worst part about being here is missing class."

I froze and stared at her. "Really?" I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Uh huh. You know how Great-Uncle Horace was teaching me about Floo Powder? That was really, really interesting. He even gave me a sample of the root that the powder comes from," she said. "And he was also going to teach me how to make Polyjuice Potion!"

Why was she telling me about Floo Powder? Why in the world would she be telling me about Floo Powder? I tried to meet her eyes, but she was staring at a fireplace in the corner of the room.

Oh.

_Oh._

"It's really cold in here, Isolde. Does the fireplace work? They should light a fire," I said casually. I turned to the guard. "Could you light a fire?"

"No."

"Oh."

"I think it works, though," Isolde said softly. "I'm pretty sure it was lit when they brought me here but… I can't really remember."

_It works._

_It works._

_It works._

"Alright. You've had enough time. She's done eating," the guard announced. "It's time to go."

I picked up the tray. "Bye, Isolde," I said as the guard led me out of the room.

As the guard walked me back to Gryffindor Tower, he said, "I hope you've learned the consequences of acting out. Talk back in class again, and the same thing that happened to her will happen to you. So listen to the rules and behave."

The really ironic thing was that that trip had done the opposite of its intention.

Because now I knew what I had to do.

The fireplace in the trophy room was connected to the Floo Network. And the Floo Powder I needed to contact someone outside of the castle was in Isolde's trunk.

It was so easy.

Except that there was a guard in Isolde's room.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

The three girls stared at me.

"Are you sure about this?" Gretchen asked.

I nodded. "Trust me. The message was pretty clear. We just need to get the Floo root from her trunk and create some sort of distraction."

"And we'll rescue Isolde?" Pippa asked.

I paused. I wasn't sure exactly how that would work. If we didn't want the guards to know that anything had happened, we'd have to leave Isolde there. Otherwise, they'd punish everyone in the school for her disappearance.

But I lied through my teeth, because I knew Pippa wouldn't be on board otherwise. "Of course."

She smiled.

Molly frowned. "I don't like this idea."

We all turned at looked at her.

"I think it will cause more problems that it will solve. Remember last time we tried to create a distraction?" Molly asked.

"Thanks for your input, Molly," I snapped. "But we're doing it."

"Does anyone know how to make Floo Powder?" Pippa asked.

"Not me, but… I bet Rose does!" I exclaimed.

Pippa and Gretchen smiled hugely and the three of us ran downstairs to Rose's dormitory.

* * *

Rose checked her book one more time, and then dropped the last bit of Floo root into the cauldron. "There," she announced. "It should be done in about five hours."

"Five hours? That's great!" I exclaimed. We'd only told her about the Floo powder two days ago, and I was amazed that she'd completed it so quickly. It wasn't as easy as pounding some of the plant up. She'd let me help, because I was especially good at potions, and it was pretty similar to potions.

Rose nodded. "Have you worked on the distraction plan?"

Of course I had. Over the past few days, every ounce of my energy had been devoted towards this plan. I'd been behaving impeccably in the stupid classes that we were forced to go to, so as not to draw attention to myself. I'd been working on the Floo Powder. And I'd formulated the plan, with the help of my friends and cousins. And it was no simple plan.

"When are we starting?"

"Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock."

Rose grinned. "Perfect."

* * *

At 8:45 I was crouched behind a suit of armor, counting down the minutes.

By 8:55, my legs were starting to burn from the position. But the plan would be starting any minute, so I paid them no mind.

I was the key part of this situation. I had to do my job.

Our distraction would have been nothing if it wasn't for Roxanne. After days of ignoring me, she'd finally come around and told me that the Hufflepuffs had discovered where they were hiding the wands. They were in a broom closet, guarded by only one guard. The guard switched three times a day: at 8 in the morning, at 5 in the evening, and at 12 at night. Other than that, the guards just stood there.

The clock reached 8:59.

In one minute, Lucy would leap onto Roxanne, starting a fist fight with her. The purpose of this was to distract the guards in the Great Hall.

In one minute, Gretchen, Pippa, and a couple of other Gryffindor girls would walk up to guards around the castle and claim that they were lost. It was Eria that had the most important job, though. Eria had been one of Lily's best friends. Eria would walk up to the guard in front of the wand closet, in full-on tears, with absolutely no idea where she was. And every time that the guard tried to give her directions, she would just start crying harder.

Once she had the guard drawn away from the door, she would scream, "But I just wanna go home!"

In one minute, I would sneak over to the closet.

I took a deep breath. There it was. There was Eria's sob. She was getting close.

From around the corner, I couldn't hear their words, but I heard Eria's high cry, and the guard's low response. My heart rose as I hear their voices move away from where I was.

And then I ran over to the door as softly as I could. I shoved the key (which I had stolen from Molly since she had keys to everything as Head Girl) into the lock and opened the door. There was a moment when I didn't think it was going to open because the lock seemed to be stuck, but then the key finally turned, as though Hogwarts knew that I had to get in there, and I dashed into the closet.

There was no time to find my wand, so I just grabbed a few and held each in my hand until I found one that felt somewhat comfortable.

Then I ran back into the hallway.

It was like magic. The second I got back to the hallway was the second that the guard realized the door was open. He started screaming, but I sent a jinx in his direction that distracted him enough. Then I called, "_Accio _Broomstick!"

You can blame Uncle Harry for teaching me that spell.

But the man was quick. "_Sonorus_!" he yelled. "CODE G! CODE G!" His voice soared over the castle, reaching every corner, reaching every ear.

I just had to hope that the situation in the Great Hall was bad enough to counter a "Code G." I just had to trust my friends.

I ran to a window, and there it was, a broomstick waiting for me. How it had gotten out of the locker room in the Quidditch Stands, I didn't know, but it was there.

I hopped down onto the broomstick, flew a few feet as the guard reached out behind me, and then pulled the Invisibility Cloak out of my cloak and put it over me.

My hands were shaking just from holding the Invisibility Cloak. This is what Lily had died to get. This is the reason that Lily had died. It had done nothing but sit there while Lily died. It didn't care that Lily died.

But I was doing this _for _Lily.

Now that I was out of sight, I circled back. Dozens of guards were now standing at the window, staring out, looking for me.

And behind them was Eria, peeking out of the broom closet, and then running down the hallway with a fistful of wands.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

That genius little girl.

And here came the moment where I had to take a leap of faith. I had to assume that they would be so worried about the wands being set loose on the school that they wouldn't be worried about one prisoner in a far-off corner.

I flew around the school faster than I'd ever flown, holding the Invisibility Cloak tightly around me so it wouldn't fly off.

And then I flew over to the window where one of my best friends lay.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

I was not expecting to see _that_ when I looked in the window.

There was Isolde, looking even worse than the last time I had seen her. She looked like she had hardly been fed, and I had to wonder if they were only giving her food when kids got detention.

But on the other side of the room was…

"Molly?" I said, almost falling off of my broom.

My cousin was sitting on top of a guard with a huge smirk on her face. "About time you showed up."

I climbed through the window, allowing the broomstick to fall onto a ledge. "I thought you didn't agree with our plan?"

"I don't. I think you're all idiots. Which is exactly why I had to come help."

I stared at her, my mouth gaping.

"And you… you knocked him unconscious?" I asked, pointing to the man she sat on.

"You should have seen it, Dom," Isolde piped up. "It was bloody brilliant. She just barged into the room and smacked him right upside the head."

I rushed over to my friend. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Continue with the mission."

I rolled my eyes. "First…" I pulled the wand out of my pocket, and I used it to take the chains off of Isolde. Then I tied the guard up the post Isolde had been tied to.

"Wait. We should ask him questions," Molly said.

We looked at her.

"We don't even know who these people are. We need to find out."

I sighed. "Okay." I did a quick revival spell on him, Molly grabbed his wand, and his eyes slid open to find Molly and I standing before him, wands pointing at his heart, and his body chained to a post.

"What do you want?"

"We want to know the truth," I told him.

He shrunk away from us. "About what?"

"Who are you and what the bloody hell are you doing in this castle?" Isolde demanded from behind us. She was sitting, as she wasn't strong enough to stand.

The man's brown eyes fluttered a few times, as though he was about to slip back to unconsciousness, but he managed to keep them open. "We are a group known as the Potter Eaters."

All three of us started laughing hysterically.

"What?"

"You couldn't have come up with a more creative name than that?" Isolde asked, clutching her side.

The man scoffed. "_I _didn't come up with the name."

"But why would you join a group called the Potter Eaters?"

The man decided it would be best to ignore us. "Anyway, we feel that the Death Eaters were treated unfairly during and after the Second Wizarding War, and we are looking to get an apology for that."

"And how did the minister respond to that?" I laughed.

The man frowned. "Are those all of the questions you have?"

"Why are you _here_?" Molly asked, collected herself from her laughter.

"We are an intelligent group of people. We realize that the Death Eaters made several mistakes, one of which was that they didn't get a hold of the children soon enough."

Isolde had gone oddly quiet. "I have one more question. Where are the boys?"

"I'm not high-ranked enough to know that information," the man scowled. "But I would guess either dead or being trained to join the group."

We were all silent for a moment. "Knock him out, Dom," Isolde said finally.

I raised my wand as he raised his hands to his face.

"_Stupefy_."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"Where's the powder?" Molly asked.

"I'm getting to it…"

I pulled the powder out of my cloak and we all sat down around the fireplace. I locked the door to the room for good measure and put a couple of protective spells that Aunt Hermione had taught me on us.

Isolde examined the Floo Powder. "Rose did an awesome job on this," she gushed. "So, who are you Flooing? Your dad?"

Shaking my head, I revealed the only part of the plan that I hadn't told anyone yet. "Uncle Harry."

Molly's head whipped around in a blur of red to look at me. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I have no choice."

And with that, I threw some of the Floo Powder into the fireplace, stuck my head in, and said, "Potter Manor."

Through a small cloud of ash, I could see into Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry's kitchen. But there was nobody there. So I screamed their names, and with each shout, I got more and more desperate. What if the "Potter Eaters" had captured them, too?

But then Aunt Ginny ran in. "Dominique?" she exclaimed when she saw me in the fireplace. "What are you doing? What's going on?"

Guilt flushed over me like a cold shower.

I was the reason her daughter was dead.

Her daughter was dead.

She didn't know.

But I pushed that thought aside, just as I had been doing for days now.

"Hogwarts has been invaded. I need to talk to Uncle Harry," I told her shortly.

Aunt Ginny's eyes widened, and for a moment she looked like a small girl, shocked. And then I realized that it was probably because she hadn't heard news like that since she was a little girl. Then her mouth opened to protest and demand more information, but she held it in and ran off to get Uncle Harry.

Uncle Harry came back in his pajamas. "Ginny's calling Ron for me. What's going on, Dominique?" he demanded as he pulled a chair up to the fireplace and sat down.

"These people showed up at Hogwarts about a week ago and surrounded it. They took the boys away, they're not in the building. The teachers are gone, we haven't had our owls, and we weren't even allowed to leave the common room for the first few days."

Uncle Harry put his head in his hands. "Would these people by any chance call themselves the Potter Eaters?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Oh, Merlin's pants," he exclaimed, standing up. He started pacing back and forth. "They tried to infiltrate the Ministry a week ago, but we fought them off. It sounds as though you lot weren't as successful." Uncle Harry spun around suddenly. "Is someone spotting you?"

"Molly and Isolde," I replied quickly.

"Good." He came back over to the fireplace. "Look, Dom, I don't know how you did this, how you got here I mean, but I'm sure it wasn't easy. Thank you for doing that. We will come and get rid of them. I just need to get over to the Ministry.

"I just need you to stay brave for about three more hours, okay? Can you handle four hours? Make sure they don't punish anyone who was innocent or any of the little kids? I know Molly is Head Girl, but I'm entrusting both of you for now."

"But, Uncle Harry…"

Here you go, Dom. Tell him about Lily. Be brave.

But that wasn't being brave. Telling him about Lily would only break his heart and slow him down. No, I would tell him about Lily later.

"Yes?"

"Never mind," I said. "Don't worry. I can do it."

Uncle Harry grinned at me. "Thank you, Dominique. I'm proud of you."

Hearing Uncle Harry say that he was proud of me was like floating up to heaven. Here was the man who had defeated the Dark Lord and he was proud of _me_.

I pulled my head out of the fireplace, and turned back to face my problems with a renewed spirit. Molly hated me? Whatever. I was going to be in serious trouble? Who cares?

Because, like Uncle Harry had said, I was brave. And I could do it.

**You have reached the end.**

**I would like the point out once more that this was a submission, and if you guys can find the page, you should totally read the other submissions for the "True Colors" competition because there are some pretty awesome stories. (PS - once again, sorry this was so late!)**

**Also, a lot of people have asked if I will continue this story, because, clearly something happens after this, but I most likely will not be continuing it. The story was about Dominique being brave and fighting back, not about how Harry comes in and saves the day and what happens with the boys or anything. Plus, I really just don't have the time - too many other things to work on. But I'll never say never.**

**Thanks so much for reading!  
~writergal24**


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